Accused confessed to police he hit murder victim with hammer

Steven Pirko admitted killing Christopher Ausman with a hammer in a police video recording watched by jurors on Wednesday, during a second-degree murder trial that began on April 29 in B.C. Supreme Court in Kelowna.

In the video footage from November 2016, after hours of questioning at the Kelowna RCMP detachment, Pirko broke down in tears and told Cpl. Eric Boucher and Cpl. Shane O’Ruairc that he “hit him with the f**ing hammer.”

Pirko told the two officers that he and his friend Elrich Dyck were drunk the night of Ausman’s death, on Jan. 25, 2014, walking down Highway 33 in Rutland when Ausman ran up to them.

Pirko said Ausman grabbed Dyck and started hitting him repeatedly. In the video, Pirko stood up with the officers to re-enact the incident.

He said he didn’t want his friend to get hurt and he had a hammer in his pocket for protection, so he used the hammer to hit Ausman in the leg, to no effect.

Pirko said Dyck then told him to hit Ausman in the head.

“I think once, maybe twice,” Pirko told the officers in the video. “Maybe one more time. I don’t know.”

He said Ausman fell backward to the sidewalk, Dyck hit him in the face a couple of times, with his fist, and the two ran off.

He realized Ausman was dead, he said, when he returned to the scene to retrieve an iPod and saw a lot of blood.